#YASAVES – My Response to WSJ

Over the weekend twitter exploded when this article in the Wall Street Journal, written by Meghan Cox Gurdon, hit the internet. By now you’ve probably read it. If you haven’t, I encourage you to do so before continuing reading.

For this reader, the entire article was subject to disbelief based on the opening premise – a mother walked in a bookstore and couldn’t find any books to buy her daughter because the young adult section was full of exclusively “this dark, dark stuff.” (Note – the only book I’ve read that Gurdon goes on to cite is Hunger Games. I found her portrayal to be vastly distorted, which makes me question her representation of the other books).

I used to work in a bookstore, you know. And god how I hated customers like Meghan Gurdon and Amy Freeman. The type who could stand in a section and somehow not see the majority of the books surrounding them. The ones who saw a book about vampires and assumed it equaled darkness and depravity (Hello, Twilight! Hello, Vampire Academy! You dark, dark books. Give me a break). From my days at a bookstore – and it was a corporate one like the Barnes and Noble cited – I can tell you, without a doubt, there are plenty of books about, let’s say, teenagers, friends, and love. Sarah Dressen and Mag Cabot, both who have entire shelves of their titles, immediately come to mind. Or books like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. They are there, and they are probably face-outs.

The problem is, Gurdon didn’t care to see those books. She didn’t care to accurately portray their availability, because that would undermine the goal of her article – censorship and shame.

Oh yeah, I’m going there. Consider these petticoats grabbed.

By pretending that YA is riddled with only “dark, dark books” Gurdon is tacitly arguing for their censorship. She is saying “I see these books, and their mere existence upsets and frightens me. It upsets and frightens me so much that I will lie to other parents who rely on my reviews. I will say these are the only books so people will believe they are dangerous.”

When I read Judy Blume’s poignant and heartbreaking (I cried when she described being more or less forced to remove a scene from Deenie) comments on censorship shared in the wake of this article, her description of the censorship movement in the 1980s matched quite closely with the tactics I saw displayed in this article.

Then there is the issue of shame. Gurdon made one point loud and clear – if you are teenager facing abuse, drug addiction, sexual assault, or violence, you are not normal. In fact, you are so abnormal, these books written about experiences like yours are a grotesque description of a distorted reality. Unfortunately, Gurdon isn’t alone in her equating “normal” experiences with “normal” teenagers. To my dismay I saw people in my twitter stream ask questions such as “Why WOULD we let teenagers read books about rape?” or “I think these authors need therapy.”

We let teenagers read books about rape because teenagers are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And if they are not, someone they know is, and they need to learn ways of empathizing and understanding. Books can help both groups of teenagers. We let teenagers read books about violent assaults and bullying because teenagers face those things every single day. It was almost laughable that Gurdon used the example of a book in which a gay teenager is beaten and tied to a gas pump and left to die, as an example of a book that distorts reality. Ever heard of Matthew Sheppard? And people implying or outright stating authors who write about these topics need therapy proves that depression or other mental illness still carry a stigma – and don’t you dare put it in the light, where our children can read it.

Which lead me to wonder – what does Gurdon think our children should know? Perhaps we should make sure our history books are edited so they don’t reflect truths about slavery, or the genocide of the Native Americans (oh, wait, most of them already are). We do our children a great disservice when we hide the possibility of learning about the reality of the world from their eyes.

And, perhaps if Gurdon was a little more up on reality and history, the lack of these titles forty years ago wouldn’t be such a surprise (although that assertion is certainly not accurate – Hello, Lord of the Flies!). Forty years ago, things like protection for gay kids, legal protection for children abused by their parents, protection from rape by your husband or boyfriend, were often denied. Some of these things took a long time to be addressed by the legal system (law nerd coming out) because they were considered best left behind closed doors. Some of these issues carried such stigma – mental illness, sexual orientation differing from heterosexual – that they were persistently kept quiet.

At the end of the day I’m reminded of a poem Nikki Giovanni wrote for Tupac Shakur after his murder, All Eyez on U. Tupac was a writer who reached teenagers with his difficult topics – there is a book published of letters from fans stating how his music saved or helped them – but he came under considerable attack with the rest of rap music in the 1990s. The censors were after his ass. I will end with Nikki Giovanni’s words, because they fit this situation nicely:

it is as clear as a mountain stream as defining as a lightning strike
as terrifying as sun to vampires
there were those who called it dirty
gansta rap inciting there were those who never wanted to be
angry at conditions but angry at the messenger who reported:
your kitchen has roaches your toilet is over flowing you basement has so much water the rats are in the living room your house is in disorder 
and 2Pac told you about it

* * *

there are those who wanted to make him the problem
who wanted to believe if they silenced 2Pac all would be quiet on the ghetto
front there are those who testified that the problem wasn’t the conditions
but the people talking about them

Keep talking – and writing – brave writers. We need you.